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Thursday 5 January 2012

Walter Salles and The Beat Museum Keep the Spirit of the Beats Alive (Part 1)


Jerry Cimino, director and founder of San Francisco’s Beat Museum, had been searching for a car, specifically a Hudson, for over five years to add to the Museum’s collection but when he finally found it, he had to keep his excitement hushed for a whole year as the vehicle came to him via a film project that was still in progress.

The Hudson in question isn’t an ordinary vintage car. Its pedigree can be found in an American literature classic considered by many to be the most important novel of the Beat generation: Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” The cinematic connection comes from Francis Ford Coppola and internationally acclaimed director Walter Salles’ collaboration on the aptly titled film, On the Road (OTR). The film has a star-studded cast that includes Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Buscemi, Amy Adams, and Tom Sturridge, among others.

In December 2011, Cimino was able to publicly share the big reveal when Hedlund (Tron Legacy, Country Strong) personally delivered the ’49 Hudson used in the film, which is one of the most anticipated films of 2012. The project was filmed in 2010 across multiple locations: in the US (New Orleans, San Francisco), Canada (Montreal, Gatineau), South America (Argentina, Chile), and Mexico. A second unit shot took place in Spring 2011 for which Salles, Hedlund and a small crew took the Hudson on an additional 4,000 mile US road trip.

Hedlund, who plays Dean Moriarty (a character modeled after Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassady, and a powerhouse inspirational source for many of the Beats), brought meaningful company with him on the road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco’s Beat Museum—Neal’s son John and Cassady family friend Albert C. Hinkle, the only living participant of the 1940s trips immortalized in the book.

Read the full article at Your Entertainment Corner

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